Welcome.
My name is Isaac Hannaford. I'm a concept artist/illustrator and have been working in the video game industry since 2003. I led the concept team on Destiny and worked on Halo: Reach, ODST, and Halo 3. In the distant past, I contributed to Red Faction Guerilla, Saint's Row, and The Punisher. I am currently available for freelance, and art direction consulting.
Cheers,
-Isaac

Lots of comments on the forums there, and I thought I'd address some of them here and elaborate on how I'm approaching these designs.

All of the vessels I've done so far transition through atmosphere, which is why wings and aerodynamics are implied in many of these. I'm not an engineer so I don't presume to believe they are accurate, however plausibility is important, and I am striving to achieve this, while also touching on the retro idealism of 50's futurism.

In the sort of space combat scenario I'm imagining you'd want as little of your profile visible or vulnerable at any given time, thus the long narrow build of the Hercules. Her main weapon is a hyper velocity rail gun with a rotating barrel. A Gatling style gun is one of the oldest rapid fire designs in the history of warfare, however the high stress and heat produced from magnetically propelling a 10 kilogram flechette round to a significant fraction of the speed of light keeps the basic mechanic relevant.

In addition to reducing the vessel's vulnerability to hostile assaults it also reduces it's profile to meteorites, and debris during the high relativistic speeds necessary to maintain interplanetary commerce and government.

Also aesthetics and personal voice play a large role in my choices. I love Homeworld, Macross, Revelation Space, and many others, and I'm aware of, and intentionally playing with those themes in my work. I love the bright colorful future that they suggest and the sense of community, exploration, and hope that I felt playing or watching those properties as a child.

It's exciting to see these images generating positive responses and I love spaceships so expect to see more.

Resources

About Me

I've been working in the Games industry for nearly 11 years. I've done work for Team Fortress 2, The Punisher, Saint's Row, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Halo 3, Halo 3:ODST, Halo: REACH and more recently Destiny